This invention relates to document carriers for processing checks and other documents through automatic sorting equipment which operates by reading magnetic characters. The document carrier disclosed herein is an improvement over the document carriers described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,043,506, 3,431,404, 3,576,972, 3,588,456 and 3,593,913. As described in those patents, automatic sorting equipment is commonly used by banks, clearing houses and other institutions for sorting checks. However, several problems have arisen with respect to the prior art of document carriers.
For example, documents are often separated from the document carrier. Automatic sorting equipment often separates or tears apart the front and back sheets of document carriers. The front sheet often does not lie flat on the inserted document making the document difficult to read or microfilm. Long business size checks often must be folded to fit in document carriers when the left edge of the document carrier is glued permanently closed, but if the left edge is open the check will fly out during sorting. Small checks in large document carriers change position in the document carriers during processing causing jams on automatic sorting equipment.